Two beach volleyball players and an ice dancer walk onto a golf course.
No, that’s not the setup of a bad joke. It’s also not some sort of mad-libs sentence.
Instead, it is purely happenstance of calendar, with the trio coming together on Thursday at the RBC Canadian Open in Caledon, Ont.
It’s a bit of a weird time for beach volleyball Olympic silver medallists Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson, as well as ice-dance bronze medallist Piper Gilles, whose schedules don’t typically allow for overlap.
The former pair is just in the beginning stages of its season, but the next Summer Olympics are more than two years away and even the upcoming world championships don’t begin until August 2027. They’re also in a month-long break on their World Tour schedule.
Gilles is still just four months removed from her long-awaited Olympic podium appearance alongside partner Paul Poirier. Her medal still sits on a shelf with the ribbon dangling off because she needs to bring it around so often.
“I do love when we are able to mesh,” Humana-Paredes said. “The Winter [and Summer] Olympians having events together and being able to attend them together happen so rarely. We never really get to see each other. So events like this are really special for that as well.”
For Gilles, what comes next is figuring out what comes next.
“I feel like right now I’m in this stage of my life that I’m just saying yes to every opportunity because I just don’t know what my future is going to be,” Gilles said. “And that’s kind of exciting. I’m not creating any roadblocks for myself, but I’m creating a space to grow and expand what I could be good at.”
The 34-year-old is taking a crash course in other sports for now. She attempted the replica 72-foot putt of Nick Taylor’s 2023 Oakdale victory that’s now been made permanent at the TPC Toronto putting course, which she says she was happy with, even if the putt was slightly strong.
Gilles will next throw the ceremonial first pitch at the Toronto Blue Jays game on Saturday, though she doesn’t plan to practise. Fair enough for the Olympic bronze medallist.
Occasionally, the accomplishment from Milan still doesn’t feel real.
“Some days it feels like it and some days I feel like I still have to be part of a grind of trying to accomplish it. And then I’ll get a reminder from a friend or someone, like, ‘Do you know the percentage of people that have been able to do what you did?’ And then it kind of takes you right back and you’re like, ‘Wow, OK, we did do that,’” Gilles said.
Meanwhile, Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson are nearly two years removed from their own Olympic moment, a silver medal under the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
They recently relocated their training base from Brazil to Los Angeles to reunite with a different coaching staff and have found quick success with silver in their Elite16 World Tour opener and gold at their most recent stop in Ostrava, Czechia.
“We feel like we’re on the right track. Things feel like they’re flowing as they should be. We still have a lot of things to improve, which is always really promising when you’re still able to produce well and perform well and still feel like there’s a lot of room to grow,” Humana-Paredes said.
Still, finding goals can be somewhat contrived in a season like this.
“It is always tricky when you don’t have a quote-unquote highlight event for the season to build towards, so I think that’s why we pick one,” Humana-Paredes said.
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That one this summer is the Montreal stop in late August, where the Canadian duo is the back-to-back reigning champion.
“We’ve proven ourselves to be one of the best teams in the world. And with that comes a lot of responsibility to maintain that. It’s very easy to be satisfied and then just coast. So we have high standards for ourselves, no matter what the external expectations are, no matter if there are tournaments or not,” Wilkerson said.
“So it could be a Tuesday, it could be a championship day. I think we are still going in fully committed to our goal, which is to win and to be consistent.”
Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson fell in the quarterfinals at the world championships last year despite not dropping a set until their elimination. They said there’s plenty of positives to take from last season, even as they plan to continue to build.
“We know what we’re capable of and we want more,” Wilkerson said.
For now, they’re off until the tour returns in Gstaad, Switzerland, in July. That gives the Toronto natives some time to continue building their partnership, which began four years ago — a number both could barely believe.
“Coming to an RBC Canadian Open and having some fun on a putting green and having a laugh together, these things keep us fresh and young. We’re still in our honeymoon phase. We’re still dating. It’s fun. You just got to have fun with it. On the road, sometimes it can get monotonous. But yeah, if you just keep it chill, it’s nice,” Humana-Paredes, 33, said.
In the bigger picture, another new development occurred in April when the federal government pledged more than $750 million toward sport in Canada.
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The beach volleyballers said they still don’t know specifics on how Volleyball Canada plans to use the additional funds or how the athlete-specific portion will be doled out.
But Wilkerson, also 33, did say the new funding would “1,000 per cent” alleviate some pressure while helping the duo continue establishing a legacy.
“It changes lives. I mean, it changed my life. So to have something as important as sport in younger generations and even the ones that are currently trying to pave the way, it’s more than alleviating pressure. It’s like creating a whole culture,” she said.
Gilles, meanwhile, said she hoped the funding would target the grassroots.
“If you have opportunity for people to be in facilities or just be around sport, it gives someone curious and they’re like, ‘Oh, well, maybe I could be good at this. Maybe I could be good at this.’ It’s just having the opportunity to try these sports,” Gilles said.
Exactly how Gilles is spending her off time, too.
